They arrived in New York in 1851 with ten of the elephants, and these, harnessed in pairs to a chariot, paraded up Broadway past the Irving House, while Jenny Lind was staying at that hotel, on the occasion of her second visit to New York. Messrs. Nutter and June also brought with the elephants a native who was competent to manage and control them. We added a caravan of wild animals and many museum curiosities, the entire outfit, including horses, vans, carriages, tent, etc., costing $109,000, and commenced operations, with the presence and under the “patronage” of General Tom Thumb, who travelled nearly four years as one of the attractions of “Barnum’s Great Asiatic Caravan, Museum and Menagerie,” returning us immense profits. At the end of that time, after exhibiting in all sections of the country, we sold out the entire establishment--animals, cages, chariots and paraphernalia, excepting one elephant, which I retained in my own possession two months for agricultural purposes. It occurred to me that if I could put an elephant to plowing for a while on my farm at Bridgeport, it would be a capital advertisement for the American Museum, which was then, and always during my proprietorship of that establishment, foremost in my thoughts. So I sent him to Connecticut in charge of his keeper, whom I dressed in Oriental costume, and keeper and elephant were stationed on a six-acre lot which lay close beside the track of the New York and New Haven Railroad. The keeper was furnished with a time-table of the road, with special instructions to be busily engaged in his work whenever passenger trains from either way were passing through. Of course, the matter soon appeared in the papers and went the entire rounds of the press in this country and even in Europe, and it was everywhere announced that P. T. Barnum, “Proprietor of the celebrated American Museum in New York”--and here is where the advertisement came in--had introduced elephants upon his farm, to do his plowing and heavy draft work. Hundreds of people came many miles to witness the novel spectacle. Letters poured in upon me from the secretaries of hundreds of State and County agricultural societies throughout the Union, stating that the presidents and directors of such societies had requested them to propound to me a series of questions in regard to the new power I had put in operation on my farm. These questions were greatly diversified, but the “general run” of them were something like the following: 1. “Is the elephant a profitable agricultural animal?” 2. “How much can an elephant plow in a day?” 3. “How much can he draw?” 4. “How much does he eat?”--this question was invariably asked, and was a very important one.